Market Square
| Market Square | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Action - Reaction |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Dark Ages |
| Illustrator(s) | Lorraine Schleter |
| Card text | |
|
+1 Card +1 Action +1 Buy When one of your cards is trashed, you may discard this from your hand to gain a Gold. | |
Market Square is an Action-Reaction card from Dark Ages. When played, it is a cantrip source of +Buy; however, when paired with a trasher (or as a defense against a trashing attack), it can gain you Golds.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, you draw a card and get +1 Action and +1 Buy.
- When one of your cards is trashed, you may discard Market Square from your hand.
- If you do, you gain a Gold.
- If there is no Gold left in the Supply, you do not gain one.
- You may discard multiple Market Squares when a single card of yours is trashed.
Other Rules clarifications
- Market Square has the same timing as "when you trash this" effects on other cards, such as Cultist, and you choose the order they happen in.
- Market Square doesn't have to have been in your hand when you trash a card; you could trash Cultist, drawing one or more Market Squares, and still discard them. This is allowed since your opponents can't see what's in your hand.
- Market Square cannot be discarded if you trash a card you don't own, such as with Lurker.
- If you trash a Haunted Mirror, you can discard Market Square for either a Gold or a Ghost, but not both.
Strategy
In addition to providing +Buy in a useful cantrip form, Market Square is sometimes a strong way to add payload to your deck quickly. When and whether to gain it is largely dependent on how well it serves in those two roles in a given Kingdom. As a cheap cantrip, it is relatively easy to afford and support within your deck, but if it does nothing besides provide +Buy (most likely because there are no trashers available), you should wait to gain it until immediately before you can generate sufficient 
to take advantage of that extra Buy, most likely in the early midgame. If its Reaction is what’s important, you’ll want to add it to your deck when you both want to increase your payload and can collide it with a way to trigger it, most likely after you have a fair amount of deck control.
Market Square's Reaction can be a very quick way to ramp up your payload, for two reasons. First, a single copy can be discarded multiple times in a turn for multiple Golds. Second, you can react with multiple Market Squares to a single trashed card. Market Square thus scales very well with your draw, as with sufficient draw you can exploit both of these factors at once while also gain-and-playing the Golds. Storyteller and Apprentice are two examples of draw cards that work well with an influx of Golds, though less specialized draw cards such as Wharf can still be effective. Once you’ve drawn everything, Market Square’s +Buy allows you to utilize all of that and build, likely by adding even more draw or Market Squares to continue scaling up. If there isn’t much draw available in the Kingdom, adding many stop cards (i.e., Golds) is usually less viable, and you’ll likely use Market Square’s Reaction more sparingly. Gaining Gold with the Reaction is still likely one of the cheapest ways to ramp up your payload, and so opportunistically gaining them in the midgame can be a worthwhile goal.
Market Square can provide a steady supply of Gold for trash for benefit effects like Salvager. With sufficient deck control you can use these effects to trash a Gold, then react with Market Square and effectively regain the Gold, potentially retaining the ability to play it on the same turn.
Market Square has strong combos with Donate (see here) and Hermit (see here). These strategies rely on trashing cards with many Market Squares in hand. The first variant with Donate is very simple: you buy multiple Market Squares in the opening and then trash all your starting cards with Donate on turn 3. You can then react with your Market Squares because you have all cards in hand while resolving the effect of Donate. Your deck then consists only of Golds and Market Squares. With Hermit, you usually aim for a megaturn of repeatedly triggering your Market Squares by stockpiling Madmen, but this is more complex to set up and requires the right numbers of Hermits and Madmen.
Given that Market Square generally serves two roles in providing both +Buy (via its on-play effect) and payload gains (via its Reaction), there are a few nuances to using your copies most effectively. First and foremost, if you play a Market Square you cannot also React it. Thus, you’ll usually want to delay playing your Market Squares as much as possible if the ability to gain Gold is important this turn. Second, when using the Reaction, it is important to note that doing so adds a stop card to your discard pile, while also requiring you to draw your Market Square again in order to play it. It is therefore a good idea to track whether you will be able to draw any Market Squares you discard again later in the turn in order to access their +Buy and, if you cannot, judge this against the risk of having insufficient Buys.
As +Buy that is relatively easy to play in bulk, Market Square synergizes fairly well with cost reduction, especially if draw or terminal space is at a premium.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
+1 Card +1 Action +1 Buy When one of your cards is trashed, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold. |
Dark Ages 1st Edition | August 2012 |
| |
 |
+1 Card +1 Action +1 Buy When one of your cards is trashed, you may discard this from your hand to gain a Gold. |
Dark Ages 2nd Edition | September 2017 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czech | Náměstí (lit. square) |
 |
+1 karta +1 akce +1 nákup Jestliže je některá tvá karta zahozena na smetiště, můžeš odložit Náměstí z ruky. Pokud tak učiníš, vezmi si Zlaťák. |
||
| Dutch | Marktplein (lit. market square) | ||||
| Finnish | Kauppatori (lit. marketplace) | ||||
| French | Place du marché | ||||
| German | Marktplatz |  |
+1 Karte +1 Aktion +1 Kauf Wenn du eine Karte entsorgst, darfst du diesen Marktplatz aus deiner Hand ablegen. Wenn du das machst: Nimm dir ein Gold. |
(2012) translation error: "When you trash…" | |
| German | Marktplatz |  |
 |
+1 Karte +1 Aktion +1 Kauf Wenn eine deiner Karten entsorgt wird, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand ablegen, um ein Gold zu nehmen. |
(2019) |
| Japanese | 青空市場 (pron. aozoraichiba, lit. open-air market) |
+1 カードを引く +1 アクション +1 購入 あなたのカード1枚が廃棄されるとき、これを手札から捨て札にしてもよい。 捨て札にした場合、金貨1枚を獲得する。 |
|||
| Korean | 시장 광장 (pron. sijang gwangjang) | ||||
| Polish | Plac targowy | Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook | |||
| Russian | Рыночная Площадь (pron. rynochnaya ploshshad') | ||||
| Spanish | Plaza del Mercado |
Trivia
Secret History
Once Intrigue had the top half. By the time I was working on Intrigue for publication, it didn't seem worth a slot. I brought it back here because I needed a simple top for the reaction. Before that I tried the reaction paired with Fool's Gold's top.
Originally the reaction was, you could trash this to gain a Gold when one of your cards was trashed. Time has shown that gaining a Gold is not as awesome as it looks (btw spoilers), and I eventually got around to testing the stronger version that made it into the set.
The reaction also dates back to Intrigue. I had a reaction that let you gain a copy of a card of yours that was trashed. To be good enough it had to give you Gold instead.
Why "When one of your cards is trashed?"
